Ginger Hair and Green Eyes
by YouCanCallMeAsh
Summary: "He loved her until his dying breath..."


A bouquet of lilies was the only thing he carried during his long walk from the house, even his wand left behind in his office at work. No one would notice his disappearance for a few days. It was Christmas break after all, and therefore only natural. He just couldn't take it any longer. All three of them were a terrible reminder that she had been there, alive and well, only 12 years previously.

He tripped and stumbled through the endless graveyard, the closer he moved to his destination, the farther his mind felt from his body. His thoughts were a separate entity from his actions. Feet twisted and heart pounded, but the mind couldn't control it anymore. The mind was going into overload with thoughts of ginger hair and bright green eyes and the smell of her perfume when she wore it because she didn't often and how it felt when she hugged him those many years ago and... Oh no, have I missed it?

But alas, he hadn't. He had managed to stumble directly where he needed to be as though some magnetic force was pulling him there. By some magical force, his mind and body reconnected as he fell in front of the headstone and tears began to flow freely from his eyes down to the white ground beneath him. Wails filled the cemetary and quickly became the only sound to be heard for miles.

Finally, he managed to muster up the strength to speak, "I can't do this anymore. I know I promised that I would protect him, but he looks so much like James but he looks at me with your eyes and it hurts every fiber of my being. And his friends, oh his friends. A ginger with an attitude, just like you. And the muggle-born too smart for her own good. It's like you've come back in pieces and these children are you and I cannot physically stand to be near them because it hurts so much. I'm so sorry Lily, but I don't know how I'm going to do it. I don't understand how to manage my feelings as well as protect your son. I'm so sorry. So.. s-sorry.."

The tears were back, disrupting his speech pattern again. But his thoughts still flowed faster and faster until it was just a river of thoughts of her. Before he knew what was happening, his feet had picked up the rest of him and began running to the entrance to the cemetary, the lilies left on the ground in front of her grave. He made it to his broom in record time, arriving at Hogwarts only hours later. No one knew of his trip and he didn't plan on telling anyone either. It hurt too much.

~Time Skip~

Everything was white. The white light flashed around him, making it too hard to see but he was relatively sure everything else was white too. He had been healed by the lights and he found himself to be a new person. Brighter, happier, younger even, although he had no idea why.

That's when he heard it. The light cleared, making the world around him visible. And he had been wrong. The world was not all white. The world was ginger and green and it smelled of her perfume that she didn't wear often, but the hugging sensation would only come a moment later when she really did hug him because she was back. No. He was gone. But it didn't matter because she was here.

Her arms squeezed tightly around him, and his arms wrapped around her within a milisecond. But then he realized what had happened, "Lily, I couldn't protect him... Lily he's going to die out there.. Lily, are you listening-"

She cut him off with a finger to his lips, "He'll be fine, Severus. You've protected him long enough. Thank you."  
Stunned, he stared for a moment. And in a moment of loss of control, he pressed his lips to hers, but she didn't pull away. And there was no James here to stop them. Because after all these years, he still loved her and she loved him.

But she began to fade into the white, slowly disappearing from view. The feel of her last hug was still etched on his skin as he awoke. His lips still warm from her touch. The morning sun reached through his bedroom window, but it was a cold gesture. It was a gesture to tell him that everything he wanted was false. And he wanted to cry and to touch her ginger hair and see the sparkle in her green eyes and smell the perfume that she almost never wore and he wanted to hug her again and never let her go.

But no. He had another day to live, to protect her son who had skipped out on school this year to defeat the Dark Lord. Little did he know, it would be his last day on Earth and that he would be able to do everything he wanted soon.

He still loved her until his dying breath, but did she love him back?


End file.
